THE GRAVE OF KING ARTHUR.

BY THOMAS WARTON.

THE fabled disappearance of King Arthur, has been before treated of; but the particular mention of his removal to a distant island, deserves a further elucidation. This happy spot was called the Fortunate Island," and the "Island of Apples," and was governed by nine sisters, the chief of whom-Morgen, or Morgana-was eminently skilled in medicine, mathematics, and magic. Taliessin gravely relates King Arthur's voyage to this island, after the ordinary method of human sailing, our pilot being Barinthus, to whom were well known the seas, and the stars of heaven." Morgen pronounced that the King might recover, if left for a considerable time to her care and medicaments, which, accordingly, is said to have been done.

These were the Hesperides and "Happy Islands" of the ancients; the receptacle, as was supposed, of happy spirits. Tasso has placed in them his luxurious bower of the dissolute Armida. To descend, however, to sober fact-they are now known as the Canaries.-ED.

STATELY the feast, and high the cheer,
Girt with many an armed peer,
And canopied with golden pall,
Amid Cilgarran's Castle-hall,

"The Happy Isles," "The Fortunate," so styled
By the fond lyrists of the antique age.-TASSO.

Sublime, in formidable state

And warlike splendour, Henry sate;
Prepared to stain the briny flood

Of Shannon's lakes, with rebel blood.

Illumining the vaulted roof,

A thousand torches flamed aloof:
From massy cups, with golden gleam,
Sparkled the Metheglin's stream: +
To grace the gorgeous festival,
Along the lofty-windowed hall
The storied tapestry was hung;
With minstrelsy the rafters rung,
Of harps, that with reflected light
From the proud gallery glittered bright;
While gifted bards, a rival throng,
(From distant Moná, nurse of song!
From Teivi, fringed with umbrage brown;
From Elvy's vale, and Cader's crown;
From many a shaggy precipice,
That shades Ierne's hoarse abyss,
And many a sunless solitude

Of Radnor's inmost mountains rude),
To crown the banquet's solemn close,
Themes of British glory chose;

Henry II.-A.D. 1171. On his expedition to suppress a rebellion raised by Roderick, King of Connaught, commonly called O'Conner Dun,—i. e., the Brown Monarch,-he is said to have been informed by a Welsh harper, in a song, of the real site of King Arthur's burial-place; till then, generally unknown. After his return, on searching at Glastonbury Abbey, they actually found the royal remains. Cilgarran Castle, where the discovery is supposed to have been made, stands on a rock, above the river Teine, in Pembrokeshire, and was built about the beginning of the Eleventh century, by Roger de Montgomery, who led the van of the Norman army, at the battle of Hastings.-W.

↑ Antiquaries mention, also, two other preparations of honey,—oxymel and hydromel; the composition of both of which may, in some measure, be guessed at from their Greek derivations, οξν, υδωρ, and μελι.-ED.

And to the strings of various chime,
Attempered thus the fabling rhyme :

"O'er Cornwall's cliffs the tempest roared,
High the screaming seamew soared;
On Tintaggel's topmost tower,
Darksome fell the sleety shower;
Round the rough castle shrilly sung
The whirling blast, and wildly flung
On each tall rampart's thundering side,
The surges of the trembling tide:

"When Arthur ranged his red-cross ranks,
On conscious Camlan's crimsoned banks:
By Mordred's faithless guile decreed
Beneath a Saxon spear to bleed!
Yet in vain a Panym foe,

Arm'd with fate the mighty blow;
For when he fell, an elfin queen,
All in secret, and unseen,
O'er the fainting hero threw
The mantle of ambrosial blue;
And bade her spirits bear him far,
In Merlin's agate-axled car,
To her green isle's enamell'd steep,
Far in the navel of the deep.
O'er his wounds she sprinkled dew,
From flowers that in Arabia grew;
On a rich enchanted bed

She pillowed his majestic head;
O'er his brow with whispers bland,
Thrice she waved an opiate wand;

* Tintagel, or Tintadgel Castle, where King Arthur is said to have been born, and to have chiefly resided. Some of its huge fragments still remain, on a rocky peninsular cape, of a prodigious declivity towards the sea, and almost inaccessible from the land side, on the northern coasts of Cornwall. - W.

And to soft music's airy sound,
Her magic curtains closed around.
There, renewed the vital spring,
Again he reigns a mighty King!
And many a fair and fragrant clime,
Blooming in immortal prime,

By gales of Eden ever fanned,
Owns the monarch's high command:
Thence to Britain shall return,
(If right prophetic rolls I learn),
Borne on Victory's spreading plume,
His ancient sceptre to resume;
Once more, in old heroic pride,
His barbed courser to bestride,

His knightly table to restore,

And brave the tournaments of yore!"

They ceased-when on the tuneful stage
Advanced a bard, of aspect sage;
His silver tresses thin besprent,
To age a graceful reverence lent!
His beard, all white as spangles frore,
That clothe Plinlimmon's forests hoar,
Down to his harp descending flowed:
With Time's faint rose his features glowed,
His eyes diffused a softened fire,―
And thus he waked the warbling wire :

“Listen, Henry, to my rede!
Not from fairy realms I lead
Bright-robed Tradition, to relate
In forged colours Arthur's fate;
Though much of old romantic lore
On the high theme I keep in store:
But boastful Fiction should be dumb,

Where Truth the strain might best become:

If thine ear may still be won

With songs of Uther's glorious son,
Henry, I a tale unfold,

Never yet in rhyme enrolled,

Nor sung nor harped in hall or bower;
Which in my youth's full early flower,
A minstrel, sprung of Cornish line,
Who spoke of kings from old Locrine,
Taught me to chant, one vernal dawn,
Deep in a cliff-encircled lawn,
What time the glistening vapours
From cloud-enveloped Clyder's head;
And on its sides the torrents gray
Shone to the morning's orient ray.

*

fled

"When Arthur bowed his haughty crest,
No princess, veiled in azure vest,
Snatched him, by Merlin's potent spell,
In groves of golden bliss to dwell;
Where, crowned with wreaths of Misletoe,
Slaughtered kings in glory go:

But when he fell, with winged speed,
His champions, on a milk-white steed,
From the battle's hurricane,

Bore him to Joseph's towered Fane, †

*Or Glyder, a mountain în Caernarvonshire.-W.

+ Glastonbury Abbey." It was built or rebuilt by Ina, King of the West Saxons, about the year 720: a very ancient church remaining, adjacent to the foundation, which was said to have been erected at the primary introduction of Christianity, and by the followers of JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.This point, however, is very doubtful; although it is certain, from authoritative evidence, that Christianity had been introduced into Britain at the end of the first century. The original abbey estates were, in the year 1799, valued at 250,000l. per annum. See Warner's "Walks in the West," chap. 1; and for some authentic particulars, a pleasing romance, entitled "The Tor-Hill," by H. Smith.-ED.

The Abbey Church was celebrated for possessing one of the first Organs seen in England. It was given by Archbishop Dunstan, A.D. 950. William